bluster

plural blusters

1. countableuncountablePompous, officious talk.

   1 more example

   Private-equity nabobs bristle at being dubbed mere financiers. Piling debt onto companies’ balance-sheets is only a small part of what leveraged buy-outs are about, they insist. Improving the workings of the businesses they take over is just as core to their calling, if not more so. Much of their pleading is public-relations bluster.

   2013 June 22, “Engineers of a different kind”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8841, page 70

   Synonyms: bombast

2. countableuncountableA gust of wind.
3. countableuncountableFitful noise and violence.

present singular third person blusters · participle present blustering · participle past blustered · past blustered

1. To speak or protest loudly.

   When confronted by opposition his reaction was to bluster, which often cowed the meek.

2. To act or speak in an unduly threatening manner.

   Your ministerial directors blustered like tragic tyrants.

   1774 April 19, Edmund Burke, Speech of Edmund Burke, Esq. on American Taxation, April 19, 1774, 2nd edition, London: […] J[ames] Dodsley, […], published 1775, →OCLC

   2 more examples

   He bloweth and blustereth out […] his abominable blasphemy.

   1532, Thomas More, Confutation of Tyndale's Answer

   As if therewith he meant to bluster all princes into a perfect obedience to his commands.

   1655, Thomas Fuller, The Church-history of Britain; […], London: […] Iohn Williams […], →OCLC, (please specify |book=I to XI)

3. To blow in strong or sudden gusts (refers to winds).

   And ever-threatening storms / Of Chaos blustering round.

   1667, John Milton, “Book III”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC